iMessage Developer Quits Apple for Messaging Startup Layer

Andrew Vyrros, who led the development of iMessage and FaceTime and was also a developer at Steve Jobs’ NeXT computer company, has left Apple to join a messaging startup. According to The Verge, sources are claiming that he actually left Apple several months ago for messaging startup Layer, where he now serves as CTO.

“Vyrros is only the latest of several tech all stars to join Layer. Jeremie Miller, the man credited with creating the XMPP (Jabber) chat language joined the company last fall, as did George Patterson, former director of operations at OpenDNS — a global infrastructure that handles 50 billion queries per day. Layer was also co-founded by Ron Palmeri, one of the guys behind Grand Central, which was acquired by Google and became Google Voice.”

Vyrros, who saw iMessage grow from nothing to handling billions of messages per day, said in a blog post yesterday that at Layer, he is not just focusing on a single application. “We’re laying out a whole dang platform, something that can grow a multitude of novel apps”, he wrote. Layer also provides push notification services, cloud sync, offline storage, and “most other services a message app would need”, he added.

At Apple, Vyrros was also responsible for Apple’s push notification services, iTunes Genius, Game Center, and Back To My Mac.

Which I get, its great to have that on your CV and then move on. Tech industry isn’t know for people staying long, and actually I think these people of late have been with Apple for awhile, long then would be expected. But would I leave Apple for a start up? maybe, but not a messaging startup, I mean its a saturated market. Now if he left to start something new, like he was part of at next then that is understandable. But then again he might just want a big payout to retire. And didn’t the last few people actually just retire?

Paul

It is not a “messaging startup” like Whatsapp, Line, or one of those apps. Its more of an infrastructure service.